The X Factor 2012: how the public voted

The full week-by-week voting breakdown reveals that Christopher Maloney spent nearly two months as the nation's favourite

The rumours were true: Christopher Maloney, who was eliminated from The X Factor 2012 on Saturday in third place overall, was winning the vote for several weeks at the start of the competition.

A voting breakdown released by The X Factor last night confirmed that the Liverpudlian balladeer won every weekly vote – often by a significant margin - up to and including week 7, when Ella Henderson was eliminated and James Arthur made a surprise appearance in the bottom two.

The following week, Arthur – who had beaten Henderson by less than 2% of the vote – was the most popular contestant. He remained so every week until his victory over Jahmene Douglas in the final last night, which he achieved with 54% to Douglas's 39%.

The stats will be of interest to those who thought Rylan Clark should have been eliminated earlier in the competition: the lowest-polling contestant left the contest every week, so the system under which the judges choose between the bottom two either worked perfectly or made itself redundant, depending on your point of view.

The full voting figures also reveal that the unfancied Union J were very close to taking third place in the competition ahead of the fading Maloney, and that Jahmene Douglas, who came second in the final, also came second in every other vote except week 8.

Maloney was not part of the original group of 12 acts chosen to go through to the live shows, but won a public vote to choose a "wild card". The new statistics reveal that Maloney's extraordinary popularity began here: he was an astonishing 44 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival, Amy Mottram.

ITV2's The Xtra Factor also revealed the predictions made by the show's four judges at the boot camp stage. Louis Walsh thought Ella Henderson would win and Nicole Scherzinger agreed, although she also wrote down a second prediction: James Arthur. Gary Barlow and Tulisa Contostavlos were both way off, backing Kye Sones and Lucy Spraggan respectively.